Kindle is Amazon’s Best-Selling Product of All Time

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Move over Harry Potter, Amazon has a new all-time best selling product. The online retail giant announced today that the third generation Kindle has become its best seller, eclipsing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in the series about the boy wizard.

The company hasn’t actually released any specific sales figure, but it did offer this impressive little tidbit, “on its peak day, Nov. 29, customers ordered more than 13.7 million items worldwide across all product categories, which is a record-breaking 158 items per second.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the opportunity to take a few veiled-yet-clear potshots at Apple’s iPad,

We’re seeing that many of the people who are buying Kindles also own an LCD tablet. Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions. They report preferring Kindle for reading because it weighs less, eliminates battery anxiety with its month-long battery life, and has the advanced paper-like Pearl e-ink display that reduces eye-strain, doesn’t interfere with sleep patterns at bedtime, and works outside in direct sunlight, an important consideration especially for vacation reading. Kindle’s $139 price point is a key factor — it’s low enough that people don’t have to choose.

One wonders if the company opted not to release the figures for fear of being outshone by the iPad’s successes.